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Greetings folks!

(Note that I do not run changes and will not be on email much this week; do not reply to this email with questions or registration changes but instead send those to the main tournament line at jonahfeldman@gmail.com).

We'll be using online ballots in IE for the first time this weekend at the Cal Berkeley Invitational.

I'll admit despite inventing the things myself, I was a bit hesitant about it for a first run. We have something like 175-200 sections of IE that all launch at the same time all over campus, and being able to check on the status of each of those judges and room is highly daunting. But the advantages of the online ballots to us (no data entry, no mistakes, etc) and to you (no having to shlep back and forth to Dwinelle, no having to deal with the auditorium I affectionately call the Hellmouth) are also potentially huge. And, many of you already will have used them just last week down at Stanford.

So, we're going to take the plunge.

Notes:

1) The events are set up now to link your judges etc. If you or they need instructions, rather than re-invent the wheel, I'll refer you to the Online Ballot Guide for IE that the good folks at the other end of the Bay created.

2) The scariest part of this is not knowing until very late that a judge isn't showing up for a given assignment. So we will still print a ballot cover sheet and have paper critiques available in the Dwinelle judge assembly room. If you are judging IE, you should EITHER come pick up your paper master OR hit the "Start Round" button AT THE BALLOT PICKUP TIME.

This protocol is different than many other tournaments, who ask you to wait until you have the students present. At Cal IE we have a lot of double entry and you won't have all the entries to start the round, so please hit the Start button when the round is texted so you acknowledge receipt and we don't worry about pushing the ballot.

3) This means we DEFINITELY need correct records of which judges are available at which time. If you have a judge taking over a commitment from another judge, they MUST come to the judge assembly and we can either get them a paper ballot or get them properly linked for online balloting.

4) If you're a true paper aficianado you're welcome to pick up a pack of critique ballots for hand writing and turn those in and only turn in scores on the online ballots, or just use paper ballots altogether; but then of course you must come to the assembly in Dwinelle as usual 30 minutes before each IE round.

I hope this change makes life this weekend much gentler and simpler for us all; the forecast looks a touch rainy still so that's all the more reason to not have to send you to an extra building to get ballots.